The Human Division gets serialized and serious about experimentation

John Scalzi explains why he had to publish his latest novel as a serial first.

John Scalzi broke into the science fiction mainstream when his novel Old Man’s War was published in 2005. Since then, he’s become a bit of an icon in the industry. He's published three more books in what's become the Old Man's War series, which tells the story of the human race struggling to survive in a universe inhabited by interplanetary species.

Earlier this year, Tor Books began publishing The Human Division, the latest in the Old Man's War series. Rather than publish the novel in the conventional way, though, Scalzi and Tor opted to publish it as a series of weekly installments. Each week, one of 16 chapters is released as an e-book (but not in print). Later this year, Tor will publish the book in hardcover and in compiled e-book form.

Ars spoke to author John Scalzi to ask why he's re-visiting the universe of Old Man’s War as a serial.

Zoe's Tale, the last story in the Old Man's War saga, was published in 2008 and Scalzi says he had to take a break from the series' world. In the years since, he has published other popular books like Redshirts. He found that when he returned to the universe he had created in Old Man’s War, things had changed a bit.

“I asked myself, how do I proceed from Zoe’s Tale?” Scalzi said. “I felt a lot of pressure. When I came back in to write The Human Division, I got to do it on terms that were interesting to me. I think of it like software. With this release, the code, the story, is more robust. I have had a lot of time to think about implications and characters. I am not reliant just on John Perry [a main character] to answer these questions. It’s more interesting for readers, because we get to see more of the after-effects of first trilogy. It’s more cinematic, and it provides a wide angle lens of the universe.“

Serials are not new to publishing, but the form is experiencing a bit of resurgence today. Many publishers are serializing e-books now that users can wirelessly receive the latest chapters when they sign up for subscriptions to content. Scalzi didn’t think his audience would mind. In fact, based on their media buying habits, he figured his audience might embrace it.

“Everyone grows up with serialized forms,” Scalzi said. “In books, and sci-fi and fantasy especially, the elemental unit of type of serialization is a trilogy. These days people want more than one book to get into the story. This is true even in video games. For example, Half Life was the first game I was happy to ‘re-read.’ And then there was Half-Life 2.“

Indeed, Scalzi is able to take some unusual chances by serializing The Human Division. Some of the weekly chapters follow main characters, but in others readers are treated to some of the smaller storylines. In The Human Division's second installment, "Walk the Plank," Scalzi tells the story using a transcript of a one-act play, breaking some of the conventions of format.

Scalzi is quick to point out that not only is The Human Division serialized, but it’s also DRM-free (Tor made all its titles DRM-free in 2012). Scalzi sees this type of broadening of platform as a way to evolve beyond traditional publishing.

“Today, publishing is where film was in the 60s and 70s," Scalzi said. "The studio system had collapsed. All the things that worked before—musicals, Rock Hudson movies—they weren’t working anymore. At that point, studios were throwing stuff to see what stuck. And then there were new films that broke new ground like Easy Rider, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and they were innovative. The industry had no choice but to follow after what they did. In publishing we are at the same place as movies were back then. We’re trying the episodic thing because readers are interested in works that are shorter that they can read on the subway, at lunch. It also lowers the prices of the material. 99 cents for story? Okay. [I make] more money now from short stories than I made in the ten years [previous]. What you see is a ground-breaking in types of story telling.”

Scalzi worked with Tor directly to help shape the course of this experiment in e-books and final print pieces. “I sat down with Tor, [to figure out] what we wanted to do to take advantage of e-books," he said. "[We asked] what can we do that is native to digital and e-books that we couldn’t have done before? Can’t do it in print, cost is too prohibitive. So, The Human Division was born and built to be digital. We worked on how it would be in hardcover as well, but we wanted to see what we could gain by going this route. This is an experiment. Let’s try this, see if it works, [see] what we can learn, and whether it’s a model that makes sense going forward.”

In the meantime, users can join in the experimentation as The Human Division unfolds over the next few weeks. The hardcover version will be published May 15.

“My first book on the Internet was shareware in 1999,” Scalzi said. “Doing something like this is not new to me, but we wanted to see what is new that is native to digital and e-books that couldn’t be done before in print. Can’t do this in print.“

Promoted Comments

Could Mr Scalzi explain why his "serial" is $0.99 per episode for US readers and $3.71 per episode for the rest of the world? (except UK where I don't know the prices because amazon.co.uk won't show them to me).

According to the results fetched by Calibre, the UK Kindle price is £.64 per chapter. *edit: forgot what I was originally going to post!*

I picked up Old Man's War in the Humble eBook Bundle and it was pretty good. Some cliche and wish-fulfillment stuff, but it was still a compelling read in an original setting and written so that you can't put it down. Easily recommendable. Scalzi has also written up some posts exploring what the HeB sale meant for him, how he thinks publishing should adapt to ebooks, and so on. This is a guy that "gets" publishing in the internet age. Take a look at his thoughts coming off of the HeB sale. http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/10/24/h ... st-mortem/http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/10/24/t ... d-authors/

45 Reader Comments

Could Mr Scalzi explain why his "serial" is $0.99 per episode for US readers and $3.71 per episode for the rest of the world? (except UK where I don't know the prices because amazon.co.uk won't show them to me).

Sounds like the serial might be a way to get more money per book. I think I'd like the serial if it were ONLY a method of distribution. But if it is a method of distribution and pricing, I think I'll stick to completed books.

Could Mr Scalzi explain why his "serial" is $0.99 per episode for US readers and $3.71 per episode for the rest of the world? (except UK where I don't know the prices because amazon.co.uk won't show them to me).

According to the results fetched by Calibre, the UK Kindle price is £.64 per chapter. *edit: forgot what I was originally going to post!*

I picked up Old Man's War in the Humble eBook Bundle and it was pretty good. Some cliche and wish-fulfillment stuff, but it was still a compelling read in an original setting and written so that you can't put it down. Easily recommendable. Scalzi has also written up some posts exploring what the HeB sale meant for him, how he thinks publishing should adapt to ebooks, and so on. This is a guy that "gets" publishing in the internet age. Take a look at his thoughts coming off of the HeB sale. http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/10/24/h ... st-mortem/http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/10/24/t ... d-authors/

So how does one get access to the online serial version. When I click on the above links and look at the book description there is this final sentence:

<quote>Being published online from January to April 2013 as a three-month digital serial, The Human Division will appear as a full-length novel of the Old Man’s War universe, plus—for the first time in print—the first tale of Lieutenant Harry Wilson, and a coda that wasn’t part of the digital serialization.</quote>

But it doesn't say how one gets access to this serialized content. My apologies if it is painfully obvious.

we wanted to see what is new that is native to digital and e-books that couldn’t be done before in print. Can’t do this in print.

Er, serial fiction? That dates back almost two hundred years, the majority of Dickens' works were serialised. Print's been doing this for a very long time.

What, exactly, is innovative here? I must have missed it. I think bringing back serial fiction is a good idea, certainly for authors and publishers worried about price support - Baen has shown for some time that people are willing to pay quite a lot more to get stories hot off the word-processor. But do we really need to pretend this is some brave new initiative, or is this 'can't do it in print' line just a sales gimmick?

Could Mr Scalzi explain why his "serial" is $0.99 per episode for US readers and $3.71 per episode for the rest of the world? (except UK where I don't know the prices because amazon.co.uk won't show them to me).

John commented on that "bend over, you gonna like it" subject on his blog.

Even though amazon.de got it right and is offering each chapter for 76 euro-cent, instead of the usual 1$==1€ conversion, i am waiting for the paper edition.

So how does one get access to the online serial version. ...But it doesn't say how one gets access to this serialized content. My apologies if it is painfully obvious.Also if there a place that features new serialized titles like this?Thanks,

You'll have to buy the individual installments from online ebook stores. Kindle, Sony, Kobo, Google, B&N, etc. (Fair warning: some stores put DRM on the book even if the publisher doesn't. The Feedbooks version seems to come with DRM, for example). There's also an audiobook version from Audible.com for the same price per chapter.

I bought the first chapter and enjoyed it. But the second one only seems to have twenty pages and I feel like it's not worth the money. John could have made more money from me if he released the story in fewer chapters.

we wanted to see what is new that is native to digital and e-books that couldn’t be done before in print. Can’t do this in print.

Er, serial fiction? That dates back almost two hundred years, the majority of Dickens' works were serialised. Print's been doing this for a very long time.

What, exactly, is innovative here? I must have missed it. I think bringing back serial fiction is a good idea, certainly for authors and publishers worried about price support - Baen has shown for some time that people are willing to pay quite a lot more to get stories hot off the word-processor. But do we really need to pretend this is some brave new initiative, or is this 'can't do it in print' line just a sales gimmick?

I agree on both counts.

Another example of a serialized novel by a popular modern day author is Stephen Kings Green Mile.

I do admit that I find it slightly humorous that while some are wanting to move TV away from serialized content, others are wanting to move literature back towards it.

The great thing is there's enough room in both arenas for both styles.

Serializing is a way to combat piracy, release a chapter at a time, and hope more people are willing to part with their .65 cents to get the next hit, as opposed to the number of people who will just download the entire book for free in twelve months. However, one would think that for anyone who is a normal to fast reader, being rationed a single chapter at a time would be rather tedious, more so if the story is any good.

Both my wife and I are long time Scalzi fans, we have most of his books. But the serialized versions are not of interest to us, since it is too irritating to be sucked into a story and then have to wait, and at some later date find the next piece of the story, and fit that little segment in between other multi-novel stories we are reading.

We end up reading and enjoying part one, and never getting back to the rest. For us, this is more like the "free-trial" versions of books, in which you get the first chapter or more of a book. But, for those it is free and not 99 cents.

There are also the pre-release books (like Baens' e-Arc versions) which are the pre-editing copies. Rough around the edges, but there for the "gotta read it now" crowd ... and often at high prices.

The real innovation about book publishing these days is that delivery and stocking is dirt cheap, so all sorts of options are viable now that aren't under print and physical storefronts. Books by the chapter, books without editing, series books in a bundle, and bundles of books from various authors, free trials of portions, and many authors give out book 1 of a series for free and charge for the rest.

All of these are good additions to publishing, and for the reader. More of "all of the above" for me.

It's great to hear that someone else is trying to dip into this. I'm sure there have been others (in fact I know there have been among the indies, it's quite common to use the donation drive format with extra content for reaching goals/donating), but this is the first relatively high profile mainstream author's attempt I've heard of in awhile.

Tad Williams did it starting in June 2001 with Shadowmarch, although between his choice in publishing formats/platform, the payment setup (first five chapters were free, and then it was a one time fee to receive access to all of the rest as they were released), the lack of ubiquitous handheld e-reading devices, and I think simply where the web was at that time it ended up not being profitable. Granted, it gave him a platform to re-market the book to publishers.

Shadowmarch was ahead of its time, but I personally don't think it failed due to the overall model: instead I think it was a combination of timing, delivery model, pricing/sales model, and marketing/distribution access. It's hard to sell an arguably less than completely polished book being released in one chapter every couple weeks for more than the price of a paperback to more than just your most core audience. Especially when it's called an experiment. Personally I loved it (other than the waiting!); the somewhat relative rawness gave it an intimate quality rather than detracting (it was still better written and edited than a number of actual print releases I've read in recent years), but I know a lot of people were turned off by the price ($14.95) for a less edited work being released serially as it was written, especially with how few people had e-readers at the time (and I think it was in html only, but can't remember).

Selling each chapter for an amount most people consider to be entirely negligible has some potential merit, though, especially with how many people now have e-readers or media consumption tablets (or even large smartphones that are completely comfortable to read on). It's too bad this can't be done (at least not through sales via Amazon) in the same way as how Amazon handles currently running TV series, with the Season Pass and associated discount for choosing to commit to buying the entire season.

So calling it innovative might arguably be a stretch (or just flat out wrong), even in a digital platform, but it's nice to see someone with a reasonably well known name try pushing it again either way.

While I'm not a fan of serials (I want to wait until it's finished and read it then), digital distribution does allow serials to be distributed in a new way. Dickens' serials were sold to magazine publishers, who published the serials along with the other content in the magazine; this is how serials (including sf serials) traditionally have worked. Scalzi is selling each serial directly to the public, without it being included in another publication. This is only possible with digital distribution because the overhead of printing and distributing a 30 page booklet 10 separate times would not make sense if it weren't digital.

(As a piece of trivia, upper middle class serial readers in victorian times would take the completed serial chapters to a bookbinder, choose a leather color that would match their library, and have the chapters sewn together to make a book.)

Er, serial fiction? That dates back almost two hundred years, the majority of Dickens' works were serialised. Print's been doing this for a very long time.

What, exactly, is innovative here? I must have missed it. I think bringing back serial fiction is a good idea,

Wow, blithely contradicting yourself from paragraph to paragraph. If "print's been doing this for a very long time" why is "bringing back serial fiction...a good idea"?

No, Scalzi's point is that print hasn't been doing serial works for quite a while (Stephen King did one, but that's about it) and so the Human Division is pioneering in trying to bring it back.

You're obviously trying very hard to miss the point. FYI: an 'innovation' is something that hasn't been done before, dredging up an old idea doesn't qualify. Do you think Apple's next innovative phone design is going to be the size of a brick? No-one's done that since the mid nineties, so it must be innovative, right?

Exactly how is serial fiction 'native to digital'? Exactly how is it something that you 'couldn't do in print'? Eh? Fifty years ago you bought a magazine on your way to work and read the latestest installment from your favourite writer on the train. How is that different from having it downloaded to your Kindle? The only difference I can see is that you no longer recycle some of your money back into the local economy.

As for Scalzi's comments, I can't help feeling that they're pretty cynical - portraying this as something fresh and new while hoping that the target market is too young or too ill-informed to be aware that fifty years ago this was how most science-fiction was read. Still, he writes some good stuff and I wish him well in his venture.

Some of these commenters sound like they haven't checked Scalzi's blog (it's called Whatever). He's releasing each chapter weekly on Tuesdays, and you get a nice announcement of it. His blog provides convenient links to different e-store copies of the current chapter for you to buy (all US, unfortunately).

While I am planning to wait and read it in hardcover (in early May, hardly a 12 month wait), I think the price point is just fine. Yes, his 2nd episode was short but still the same price. So what? You're paying for his ability to keep you entertained, and they are DRM free (usually) as noted above. A bargain by most measures. If the cost is too high, maybe get someone in the US to buy it and send it to you securely or something.

I know his style isn't for everyone, but I have enjoyed every story he's written.

Yes, we've had serial SF novels in print before. For example, many SF golden age classics started out as serials printed in John W. Campbell's Astounding magazine.

But Scalzi and Tor are adding a new twist here: you don't have to subscribe to a magazine (or buy it from the newsstand each month) to read the serialized story. So in theory, you're not paying for all the other stuff in the magazine. That may not be a huge difference, but it is a difference, and it's something print couldn't very easily sustain.

That said, the price does seem a little high to me. A paperback SF novel typically runs around $8-$10, and its Kindle edition is often around $6-$8. The 16 episodes of this serial novel will cost $15.84 - almost double the paperback price. Scalzi is saying (on his Whatever blog) that those who wait for the novel will pay approximately the same price as those who bought it an episode at a time. If that's true, he's found a nice way to ring the cash register!

No, his point was clearly that he thinks its native to the digital format and can't be done in print. Both of which have been proven false.

Oh balls. He's right that it can't and isn't being done right now, because the economics aren't there. Outlets for short stories have mostly disappeared and few things are printing short stories. The fact that you had to go back to Charles Dickens indicates how barren the possibilities on the print level are currently.

Exactly how is serial fiction 'native to digital'? Exactly how is it something that you 'couldn't do in print'? Eh? Fifty years ago you bought a magazine on your way to work and read the latestest installment from your favourite writer on the train.

I guess it just shows how much the middlemen take, i bet John isn't getting $1 per chapter.

I would welcome the serialisation of books, if they were a little more accessible - the old ways were best in that you took a subscription to the Scifi magazines and got the short stories and serials that way. Maybe there should be an online magazine doing this, that might work better than throwing a book into the internet and expecting the reader to want to get every chapter - without getting bored or having their attention drift away as it does nowadays.

Maybe we just need another Campbell and Astounding Stories, but digital.

Apparently Mr Scalzi has never heard of comic books or manga. Both the comics industry here in the US and the manga in Japan have been doing this serialized print publication thing for years. Oh, and digital, too.

I liked the first two books but couldnt get into the third one. I didn't care much for Zoe's Tale. It is good to see Tor going DRM-free, but I don't care to pay for my books chapter by chapter. I'll wait for the paper back.

Could Mr Scalzi explain why his "serial" is $0.99 per episode for US readers and $3.71 per episode for the rest of the world? (except UK where I don't know the prices because amazon.co.uk won't show them to me).

I suggest buying it on iTunes/iBookstore or Kobo instead. The price will probably be better than Kindle's price where you are. And since it's DRM-free, you can convert it to any format you like.

I guess it just shows how much the middlemen take, i bet John isn't getting $1 per chapter.

...

Maybe we just need another Campbell and Astounding Stories, but digital.

Tor gets 70% of 99¢. John gets 25% of that 70%. So, 17¢. Unless his contract is nonstandard, in which case I'd love to hear about it.

There are still magazines. Astounding changed its name to Analog years ago and can be bought in ebook form as well as print. (Also: Analog still publishes serials, though generally it doesn't split a book up into more than four parts.) The other major print magazines for SF in the US are Asimov's and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. There are also digital-only magazines such as Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, and Tor.com publishes fiction regularly as well.

However, getting published in one of those will get you about 7¢ per word for longer pieces, and up to 20¢ per word for shorter pieces. For an 18,000-word novella in Analog, you'd get $1,260. If instead you put out your own ebook at $2.99 and get 70% of that, you have to sell only 603 copies to earn more than Analog would pay you.

So while landing a story in one of the major magazines is still prestigious and can get you on award radars if the story is good, it will pay far less than publishing it yourself—if you are an established writer with an existing fanbase. (Disclaimer: I work for one of those.)

Tor gets 70% of 99¢. John gets 25% of that 70%. So, 17¢. Unless his contract is nonstandard, in which case I'd love to hear about it.

However, getting published in one of those will get you about 7¢ per word for longer pieces, and up to 20¢ per word for shorter pieces. For an 18,000-word novella in Analog, you'd get $1,260. If instead you put out your own ebook at $2.99 and get 70% of that, you have to sell only 603 copies to earn more than Analog would pay you.

but how long would it take if you're getting 25% of 70% (well, 52¢ of the $2.99 ebook), but it seems that John isn't getting a brilliant deal compared to Analog, though it depends on how many they manage to sell. Really my point was that the magazines should become like a publisher, only aggregating stories together to sell. Nowadays, you can pay by the download rather than the word (I guess it would be too difficult to do this pre-computer age) or pay by the word and then put links in to the author's ebooks for download (maybe with the magazine acting as a publisher for those too).

Could Mr Scalzi explain why his "serial" is $0.99 per episode for US readers and $3.71 per episode for the rest of the world? (except UK where I don't know the prices because amazon.co.uk won't show them to me).

Where do you have such prices?

Anyway, regarding seeing prices at amazon.co.uk, if you look at the site while being logged out you can see the prices.

My problem with this whole idea is that Amazon is just not setup to sell serials properly:

1) You need to click and buy every single part separately.2) They will forever be separate "books" on your Kindle, which will suck for re-reading.3) Once the serial is complete, there is no way to switch to the omnibus collected version, except to buy it again.

So even though I'm a fan, and have a Kindle, I'm willing to wait for the collected version. I think it will age a lot better and it's not much of a wait, really.

Silbey wrote:

The 16 episodes of this serial novel will cost $15.84 - almost double the paperback price.

And the hardcover price would be? Why I would guess right around 16-18 dollars.

I bought the first chapter and enjoyed it. But the second one only seems to have twenty pages and I feel like it's not worth the money. John could have made more money from me if he released the story in fewer chapters.

Scalzi addresses this in his blog as well. Some of the episodes are longer than others with the first one being what he calls double length. Good for him in trying to revive the serial method and seeing if it will work in the digital age. I for one will be waiting until I can get all the chapters in one complete (bound) package, guess I'm just like the feel of a book in my hands over an e-reader

My problem with this whole idea is that Amazon is just not setup to sell serials properly:

1) You need to click and buy every single part separately.2) They will forever be separate "books" on your Kindle, which will suck for re-reading.3) Once the serial is complete, there is no way to switch to the omnibus collected version, except to buy it again.

4) In addition to cluttering up your virtual bookshelf, serials really clog up your recommendations. Amazon's algorithm figures "Hey! He bought the last five Scalzi eBooks! Scalzi has ten more coming out! Let's recommend all of those!" It should only take one slot on my recommendations. And no, I don't want "Judge Sn Goes Golfing" either. (Although that may be the only Scalzi book I don't want.)

Cesar Torres / Cesar is the Social Editor at Ars Technica. His areas of expertise are in online communities, human-computer interaction, usability, and e-reader technology. Cesar lives in New York City.